Australian Kingsmoot 4th Place - Tyrell Crossing 1.0

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• 1.0

I'll do a more detailed write up when I get the time.

Deck performed extremely well considering I barely tested it in the lead up to the Kingsmoot. I've already changed the list after coming to the conclusion that it had an over-abundance of card draw and lack of answers to Winterfell. The deck's worst matchup would arguably be against Stark. In a Stark Fealty heavy meta, I'd say this deck isn't the best choice. Fortunately however I only played 1 Stark player the whole day.

I've taken out:

-1x Milk of the Poppy for a 3rd copy of Nightmares. It would have made my Stark matchup much more of a 50-50 game, I lost convincingly because I couldn't draw a second copy when it mattered. Nightmares is just so much more versatile too, dealing with Nymeria Sand and the all-important Greyjoy draw engine of Great Kraken. I can't say I'd build a deck without 3 copies of this card in future and Paxter made this card to easy to play.

-1x Support of the People for a 2nd copy of Ser Horas Redwyne. This guy was a monster in the deck and makes for a fierce combo with Olenna, while also making Margery insanely hard to play around - she's probably the best card in the deck as it is. I found that support of the people was only really looking for Highgarden (the card is really useful for enabling challenge #3 while also removing problematic characters like Gregor from attacks against you). While Highgarden is awesome in this deck, it is gold intensive and isn't going to serve you well in every game, especially if you're already ahead on board.

-1x Counting Coppers for Wildfire Assault. Between Pleasure Barge, Littlefinger and what you can rip off you opponent with Pulling the Strings, I felt that in 5 out of the 7 games I played it would have just served me better as a Wildfire. There were definitely situations where Wildfire would have brought me out of the pit of despair, and I found myself using Counting Coppers on plot 6 or 7 where its income and initiative numbers were letting me down. While this deck can go really wide with so many low-cost dorks, it can afford to take hits from Wildfire and First Snow of Winter. By turn 2 most games I had enough fatties and dupes provided I saw at least 1 Barge to not care about either plot.

Throughout the day I played:

Round 1: Martell/Stag - Win. My opponent was fairly new to the game and ultimately my explosive card draw and board crept around his semi-hyperkneel strategy before it took root.

Round 2: Greyjoy/Crossing - Win. Not going to lie, I've had quite a few games against Greyjoy Crossing and every time I play it, I sweat more and more. I conceded initiative nearly every turn to let him swing in for unopposed challenges in order to get a triple (or for an Informant turn, quadruple) challenge back. Despite him Sowing my Arbor on turn 1, I was able to climb power substantially faster, closing the game down with the all important turn 4 Clash of Kings for the win. Against Greyjoy, this card is a godsend - it beats their initiative 8 Rise of the Kraken and can lynch enough power from them for you to win the game before they even get to challenge.

Round 3: Martell/Lion - Win. By this point, I was copping so much flak for having gone undefeated thus far. I had sat down for round 3 at the table, facing my regular playbuddy who had been playing Martell since 1st edition. I knew what to expect out of this matchup, and the little playtesting I had was mostly against this deck which resulted in a few last minute deck changes before the tournament to strengthen my odds against the icon denial game. The game opened up with my characters being denied icons left, right and center - an onlooker commented about my imminent demise and how he thought Tyrell doesn't fare well against the power decks in the meta, especially against Martell. Needless to say, many haters choked on their words that day! With Rattleshirt's Raiders, Syrio Forel and Confiscation, I was able to strip off the problematic icon denying effects while building a board with the deck's incredible card draw and economy to eventually snowball in for the win.

Round 4: Lannister/Dragon - Loss. My round 4 opponent was also my opponent for the Quarterfinals. After having an atrocious setup, Margery, Arbor Knight and a Hedge Knight to his 0 cost location, Illyn Payne and Merchant, I was forced to open with Marched to the Wall to discard my Margery and stabilise the board as much as I could. I couldn't afford to lose Margery to Illyn so early in the game, but it never mattered as I could never stabilise. Tywin showed up early in the game along with Jamie which completely destroyed my board of a few humble dork knights and some higher cost characters. I'm convinced to this day that the game was over from turn 1. Needless to say my opponent was a fantastic player and very much deserved the win.

Round 5: Stark/Fealty - Loss. I won't lie, this deck has an appalling matchup against Stark Fealty. With next to no target removal for the Renown clowns or Cat and few answers to Winterfell, I was never able to get challenges off for maximum effect. I tried every trick in the book to let a Queen of Thorns trigger go off (I had Horas in hand from the get-go), but my opponent simply wouldn't have it. I used my first Nightmares far too early in the game in order to get a good board position, had I of saved it or drawn a second copy, the game may have swung in my favour. I tried to rush him in the early game and he simply climbed power faster. I had played the same opponent in the Canberra Regionals the week before, he is an extremely tough opponent (he won that Regionals), and I'd gladly face him for another challenging game at Nationals.

Round 6/Quarterfinals: Lannister/Dragon - Win. After surprisingly scraping into the top cut with good SoS, I sat down with a sense of dread as I faced my round 4 opponent once more. Fortunately this game's setup wasn't atrocious like last time and I was able to make an opponent of myself. After battling through a tough grind for 3 or 4 turns, my opponent made a couple of misplays which resulted in some degree of frustration on his behalf. Sadly he lost focus on the game and made several more play errors which let me sneak in a few more challenges with Olenna's Informant to steal game game.

Round 7/Semifinals: Targaryen/Lion - Loss. I got pantsed. Say no more. My Semifinal opponent also took out the tournament with his phenomenal Targ/Lion Drogo claim 2 madness. It cleaned up my board turn 1 and despite ripping through some 12+ cards through repeat draw effect, I was demolished without being able to recover. One significant weakness is this deck's inability to recover key characters like Margery. While losing the Knight of Flowers, Randall Tarly or the Queen of Thorns doesn't harm the deck that much, losing 2 or 3 of them so quickly completely shuts down the deck's main character engines. My opponent convincingly took the victory (and rightfully so) by shattering my board turn after turn.

Overall I was really pleased with the deck although there are issues with it as I mentioned before. The deck has great economy, versatility, fantastic card draw and so many phenomenal 2 card combos that just makes the deck so unpredictable. Margery, Horas, Informant and Paxter are all MVP characters for the deck that just make it work so well. While all of the hard 5-7 cost hitters are what makes the deck threatening, those four characters are the grease of the deck that keeps the cogs turning.